Return
by SailorTerra1
Summary: Sailor Moon wished for everything to be back the way it was before she heard of the Dark Kingdom. No one ever told her to be careful what she wished for. AU


Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters and settings are copyrighted by Naoko Takeuchi & her associates. Anything you don't recognize is our own invention, as is the plot and the 'background.' No money is being made here. This is just our way of playing. No offense intended.

AN: This is our take on the 'truth' behind season one. This also incorporates elements for an entire set of stories we are working on. We never thought that the timeline of 1000 years was realistic, since the Chinese have been observing the heavens (and the moon) for longer than that. This is our take on the fall of the Silver Millennium, dated 10,000 years ago. Besides, this aligns with several myths about an advanced civilization falling 10,000 years ago. We hope you enjoy it. If anyone wants the background on this, email us and we'll be happy to share our views. In any case, please let us know what you think.

**RETURN**

He awoke in the darkened throne room, surprised to be alive. The blast of power the Beryl had struck him with was meant to kill. Why wasn't he dead?

"You live again because of me, Zoisite," the melodius voice of Queen Metalia answered his thought. His green eyes narrowed as he saw her on her throne, confident that he was unchanged.

"Approach me, my General," she said.

Everything in him rebelled.

"No!" he cried. "I am NOT your General! I am NOT Zoisite! I am Kishi Janus, Baron of the Saturnian satellite, guard of the West to Prince Endymion of Earth. I WILL NOT betray my prince again!"

"That is a mistake, Little One," a familiar voice stopped him cold. He turned to see a familiar form coming out of the shadows.

"Oberon," he said as the dark-haired man came closer. "Tell me you did not. . . ." He stopped suddenly when he saw the coldness on the other man's face.

"I am Nephrite," the man replied, grabbing Janus in a tight grip. "You are a misguided human." He twisted Janus' arm behind him and marched the smaller man up the steps to Metalia's throne, and then forced him to kneel before her.

"Well done, Nephrite," Metalia said. She had hoped that Janus would believe that she had restored him to life. The Ginzuishou had responded to Princess Serenity's wish, but its power was insufficient to modify the memory of the most powerful denizen of the Dark Kingdom. Metalia was prepared for Janus' refusal, though. She reached forward and tore away the left sleeve of the uniform jacket that Janus wore, exposing his arm completely.

Janus knew what was coming. He had endured it once before.

Metalia plunged her forefinger into Janus' arm until she reached bone. She ignored his screams echoing through the throne room as she dug out a bloody piece of bone, with flesh attached. She flung the grisly thing into a waiting pod, where it was immediately encased in a black energy field.

Before Janus' eyes, the flesh began to pulse and grow. He knew what she was doing. She was making a copy of him.

After his first capture, and following seemingly endless torture, she had created a copy of him that had slain his beloved before his eyes. He thought that the death of Kishi Atlas, guard of the North, had broken his spirit completely.

He had accepted a copy of his love, renamed Kunzite, because he thought it was better than nothing. He had allowed Metalia to possess him with a dark spirit so that her commands would not distress him.

Now, ten thousand years later, he found new strength.

"You will fail, Metalia!" he cried. "They will not be fooled again! Sol and Terra will destroy you!"

"Take him away," Metalia said. "Imprison him for now. I will decide his fate later."

"As you command, My Queen," Nephrite said. He forced Janus to his feet and teleported him to a barren cell.

When Nephrite left him, Janus collapsed on the floor of the stone room, wrenching sobs of heartbreak and utter hopelessness shaking his body. He had nothing here: not Kunzite, not Akari, and not Atlas.

After a while, Janus decided to find out his limits. To his surprise, his dark powers worked in this cell. He could repair the damage to his arm, transform the uniform he wore into the uniform he had worn as Endymion's guard, warm himself, conjure food and drink, and sit in midair as he was accustomed to doing.

None of his considerable magics would work on the door to the cell, or the walls. Ice shards and blades shattered. Blasts of heat or cold had no effect whatsoever. His teleportation, which had once taken him anywhere at a thought, did not work at all.

He was trapped in a cell by the Queen Metalia.

This time, though, there was no mirror showing him everything that his copy did and said. She was that merciful, at least. He would not have to watch the creature do her bidding.

How long would Metalia make him contemplate his fate? He had no way of knowing. Time flowed as the Queen willed, he remembered that. He could only hope that she would decide to kill him, and that he would finally be reunited with the man he loved beyond all others.

Metalia watched while her formerly obedient head general was hauled into her presence by two large youma.

"I am disappointed in you, Kunzite," she said. "I am aware that you developed an attachment with the child that I set you to guard. I am also aware that you planned to leave the Dark Kingdom with Zoisite and to live with the two of them on Earth, if he had survived. Zoisite would not have survived life on Earth."

"You mean you would have had him killed," the man growled as he was forced into a kneeling position at her feet.

"I mean that creatures of the Dark Kingdom will not survive long on Earth," she said. "Now, all will be as before, if you renew your loyalty to me."

"NEVER!" he surged to his feet in spite of the youma holding him. "I am Atlas! I am guard of the North! My loyalty is to my prince, and my goddess!"

"You are loyal to a debauched prince who cared so little for you that he did not even search for you," Metalia stated. "You gave the rest of your heart to a sun goddess who put it on a string with all the others and cared nothing more for you. She did not search for you, either."

"That was because you knew how to cripple her," Atlas/Kunzite said. "I will keep my loyalties as they are, and as they always should have been."

"Then you will pay," she said. In the blink of an eye, he was stripped to the waist, and she had extracted tissue and bone from his arm. To her surprise, he did not cry out. Blood trickled from a bitten lip, but no sound left his mouth.

"You are stubborn," she said as she cast the tissue into a pod for growing. "It was one of the qualities that I had hoped to harness. I see now that you were merely biding your time. Take him to his old cell. I believe the mirror still works." She sat back in her throne, ignoring as her former general was hauled from her presence.

After his shouts of anger and vows of revenge had faded, Metalia sat forward once again.

"Nephrite, come to me," she said. The dark-haired general appeared before her dais and bowed respectfully.

"I am uncomfortable with all four of them in the same place, even though they cannot communicate," Metalia told him. "Bring the other three to me, one at a time. I will empty their minds and you will drop them someplace on Earth where they can live out ordinary lives in ignorance."

"What of the last, My Queen?" Nephrite asked.

"If Kishi Atlas returns to Earth," Metalia said. "There is a possibility, however remote, that he will be found by Endymion, Sailor Venus, or Sailor Sol. If any of the three of them find him, he will prove to be a major source of strength. No, Kishi Atlas stays here, forever. Sailor Sol will never have her strength back. Sailor Venus will never feel complete again. Endymion will forever be vulnerable, even if he manages to retrieve the other three."

"I will start with my double, Kishi Oberon," Nephrite said, and then disappeared from the throne room.

When the window on his cell door opened, Kishi Oberon did not bother to look up from his contemplation of the picture in front of him. Long ago, in an attempt to subvert him, Metalia had granted him dark powers such as no Kishi had ever known. In power, he was now greater than some Senshi, and equal to others.

Those powers were the only reason he was still sane. The Black Queen had told them they were not allowed to die, and the powers kept him from losing his mind. They allowed him to feed and clothe himself, to keep himself clean and groomed, and to occupy his mind so that he did not go mad.

He had created a painting in this dark place to remind him of why he had remained steadfast for such a long time. The painting showed his two young lovers: Kishi Phobos with his blue-black hair and sun-gold eyes, and Sailor Ariel, with her wavy red hair pulled back from her face in a style reminiscent of Sailor Venus, but cut off sharply just above her shoulders. Behind the two, his greatest love, Sailor Pluto, stood with her garnet staff in one hand, the other stretched out towards him. A smile of welcome graced all three of their faces.

His Dark Kingdom-born double, Nephrite, also kept him engaged by occasionally visiting him. Nephrite took great delight in telling him how long it had been, and what was occurring on Earth. The last time Nephrite had visited him, a bloody conflict had finally ended hundreds of years of war in Nippon, formerly known as Elysium. The island chain, remnants of the mighty island where the palace had stood, was now united under one man: Tokugawa Ieyasu.

"Get up, Oberon," Nephrite's voice echoed in the stone room. "It's been four hundred years since my last visit, and this is the final time you will see or hear me."

"Shut up, Nephrite," Oberon replied, his voice exactly the same, tone for tone. It seemed that neither of them had the energy for this game any longer. "You say that every time, and you always come back.

"I said get up," Nephrite's voice was accompanied by the sounds of a latching mechanism being manipulated, followed by a muttered spell, and the forgotten sound of a door opening.

Oberon looked up in shock to see Nephrite framed by the dim light from the hallway.

Without thinking of the consequences or the passage of time, Oberon charged Nephrite, the picture still in his hand. Nephrite easily avoided the attack, and then counterattacked, hitting the Kishi hard enough to stun him. He picked up the Kishi in one arm, and tucked the picture into his uniform tunic before teleporting to Metalia's throne room.

In the throne room, Oberon was permitted to regain his senses before he was knelt before Metalia.

"The answer is still no," Kishi Oberon said tiredly. "I am guard of the East to Prince Endymion of Earth. I am Baron of the Uranian satellite Oberon. You cannot offer me anything that will make me break faith with my Prince, or with those I love."

"Love," Metalia mocked. "What has love gained you? None of those who you love have searched for you."

"You ordered two of them murdered," Oberon said. "I've been over all of this with Nephrite. I watched that wretched mirror. I saw what he did to Phobos and Ariel at your orders. I saw the battle on the Moon. I saw his visits to Phobos in this life. You may one day subvert Phobos and Ariel, but you will never sway Sailor Pluto. Duty is all to her. We understood one another. I would not turn from my duty for her, and she would not turn from hers for me. As long as Sailor Pluto is beyond your grasp, so am I."

"You truly have no concept," Metalia said. With deceptive gentleness, she placed the heel of her hand on his forehead, and then invaded his mind, wiping all except his knowledge of language. She removed her hand and watched with satisfaction as he collapsed into Nephrite's waiting arms.

"Take him away," she said. "Put him where he will be found. I do not want him dead. After all, hostages can be useful, and Sailor Jupiter may hesitate if I tell her I know where her Guard Partner is."

"Yes, My Queen," Nephrite said. He tightened his grip on Oberon and teleported to Earth.

Kuala Lumpur was a place that Nephrite had explored on many occasions. Like many large cities, it had a dark side. Like many large cities in the orient, it had places for drug addicts to feed their hunger in anonymity and relative peace.

One such place was Nephrite's target. He stripped his hapless victim completely, allowing his hands to wander over the body so like his own, almost wishing he had succumbed to temptation centuries ago and slaked his lust for Oberon. After a few moments, Nephrite heard the unmistakable sounds of a police raid. They would find Oberon and keep him safe from lethal harm.

After he returned to his quarters, before retrieving the next Kishi on his list, Nephrite took the picture out of his tunic and looked at it intently for a moment. He ran one gloved finger over the portrait of Kishi Phobos, and a single tear traced its way down his face.

"Michie," he whispered, remembering the day less than a year before when the reborn Phobos had apparently perished in a motorcycle accident orchestrated by his own father. Nephrite had seen to it that Takara paid for the boy's supposed death, and had provided handsomely for him after placing him in an orphanage in Tokyo, but that did not bring Michie back to him. Michie was beyond his reach, until the day he could escape the Dark Kingdom forever.

Nephrite then turned his attention to the young woman in Phobos' arms: Sailor Ariel. He knew the wide blue eyes and the sweet smile as well as he knew Michie's face. At least she was still alive. Zoisite's youma had been overenthusiastic in the execution of their duties, and would have slain her without a thought.

He stared at it a moment more before placing it carefully on his desk.

"Naru."

When Nephrite opened the viewing window to Hyperion's cell, he did not see the blonde Kishi anywhere. This could be interesting. Hyperion was dangerous and resourceful. He was probably concealing himself in the cell, waiting for Nephrite to become concerned and open the door to look for him.

Hyperion was in for a surprise.

Instead of opening the cell door and rushing in to search for the missing Kishi, Nephrite opened the door and waited. He knew Hyperion's personality well, since Jadeite was a copy of Hyperion. Neither of them were patient men. Hyperion would eventually rush him.

When the attack came, Nephrite nearly lost the encounter. Instead of rushing blindly, Hyperion sent a flurry of rock shards directly at Nephrite and tackled him while he was disoriented. Nephrite took several sharp blows before he clouted Hyperion on the back of the head, rendering him unconscious.

Nephrite rolled the Kishi off of him, and then healed the cuts he had sustained from the rock shards. He kicked Hyperion for his injured pride as he repaired his uniform before hoisting the man over his shoulder. His attention was caught by something in the cell, and he entered to investigate.

Hyperion was not the painter that Oberon was, but he was a gifted sculptor. He had created two life-sized statues that graced two of the corners of his cell.

One was of a Senshi, Sailor Titania, with short red hair, streaked with gold. She had the body and the stance of a runner. Her dark skin contrasted against the yellow of her fuku.

The other statue was of Kishi Deimos. His red and black armor was rendered with exacting detail, from the three-sectioned staff in his hands to the Roman numeral II inside the symbol for Mars on his chestplate, to every blonde hair on his head.

Smiling to himself, Nephrite sent both statues to Jadeite's quarters before teleporting to Metalia's presence with his charge.

Hyperion regained his senses kneeling in front of Metalia's throne. He regarded her coldly, as any soldier would regard the enemy commander.

"My answer has not changed," he said. "I will not swear to you, no matter what you offer me. Titania is dead. Deimos has already been corrupted by the double you created of me. I will not disavow Endymion for you."

"How bravely you face the end," Metalia mused, allowing him to think that she was going to kill him.

"I have no reason to fear death," he responded. "You will fail, and I take comfort in that."

"Wrong," Metalia responded. She wiped his memory as completely as Oberon's, and nodded to Nephrite.

"Choose a different country this time, Nephrite," she said. "If they are within a thousand miles of one another, their Guard Partners, or their Primaries, they will seek them out instinctively. See to it that this does not occur. One day, I may offer Sailor Mars her Guard Partner back, for a price."

"Yes, My Queen," Nephrite said. He gathered Kishi Hyperion into his arms and teleported him to a place he had taken Michie once: San Francisco.

He left the unconscious man, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with no identification, on a bench in Golden Gate Park. He waited, invisible, until a pair of policemen approached him. Confident that Hyperion would be safe, he teleported away. It was time to check on Oberon.

In Kuala Lumpur, Nephrite hovered outside of the hospital room where Oberon was speaking to a man in a suit. He could hear the conversation, and he nearly laughed aloud. How ironic that Oberon would benefit from the escape hatch that he had made for himself when he decided to take Michie and escape both Takara and Metalia.

To Oberon's surprise, Janus offered no resistance when he came in to the cell. Unlike the others, Janus' cell was stark and bare. The only decorations of any kind were two holograms: one of Kunzite as Janus last saw him, the other of Kishi Atlas in his armor, with one katana in each hand. Janus banished both when Nephrite entered and stood up. He straightened his uniform tunic and brushed imaginary lint from it.

"I'm ready," he told Nephrite.

Nephrite nodded and took Janus' arm almost gently.

When they appeared before Metalia's throne, Janus shook off Nephrite's hand and walked calmly up the steps to the throne. He then dropped to one knee, staring the Queen in the face.

"Do whatever you're going to do," he said. "You can only better my lot."

"He is a prideful one, My Queen," a voice identical in tone to Janus' spoke up, and a flurry of sakura petals announced the arrival of Janus' copy, Zoisite.

"His pride is one of the qualities that made him desirable as a general, Zoisite," Metalia said. "Do not forget that, but do not let it rule you, either."

"May I take him?" Zoisite asked, his green eyes glittering with malice.

"No," Metalia said. "You must be here when the pod opens. Your face must be the first he sees."

"As you wish, My Queen," Zoisite said. He floated over to one side, where a pod lay with an all-too familiar form in it. He looked into it for a long moment, then looked at Janus.

"He's going to be mine," he said viciously. "You'll never touch him again."

"He is not Atlas," Janus said sadly. "I fooled myself for a very long time, but it is not the same. I wish both of you as much happiness as Atlas and I had."

"Enough," Metalia said. She threw a ball of dark energy at Janus and he tumbled down the dais, unconscious.

"Remember my instructions, Nephrite," Metalia said. "They must never contact one another."

"Trust me, My Queen," Nephrite said as he lifted the smaller man. "The destination I have in mind for Janus is three thousand miles from Hyperion, and five thousand more than that from Oberon. They will never meet."

"Keep in mind where you take him," Metalia said. "Sailor Mercury could be useful, and her Guard Partner may prove the perfect bait."

"Yes, My Queen," Nephrite said, and teleported to Earth.

Nephrite appeared in New York City's Central Park, in front of a statues commemorating Alice in Wonderland. He gently laid Janus at the base of the statue group, partially under the giant mushroom. He remembered Janus, as Zoisite, reading the story to the reborn Sailor Terra.

He had kept to his instructions. The three Kishi were over a thousand miles from one another. Each of them, though, was in a place that might allow them to reunite with the others. Oberon would be a world traveler. Hyperion was in a city with an international airport. Now, so was Janus.

After a moment, he changed Janus' uniform into ordinary street clothing, and placed a small piece of identification in his pocket. This would identify Janus as one of the owners of the condominium they owned collectively, set up for when they had dreamed of all escaping Metalia, and the bank account they had set up for emergencies. It wasn't much, but it would give Janus a start. Nephrite felt a bit of affection for the Little Rat, and more than a little appreciation for his astonishing beauty.

As before, he waited, invisible, until a pair of police officers on horses approached the unconscious man. He had gained enough bruises from his tumble down the dais to look like a mugging victim.

Satisfied that Metalia's commands were obeyed to the letter, Nephrite returned to the Dark Kingdom.

TBC in 'Remembering'


End file.
